I won’t say we’re all the way back to the glory days, when Apocalypse Hotel was leaving me enchanted and amazed pretty much every week. But this was the first episode in a month that recalled the potential this series showed in the first half of its run. It pains me to say it but the near-absence of tanuki probably had a lot to do with that. They started out well but the Procione family has really grated on me of late. Especially Ponko but Tamako is off to a great start at being insufferable too. At the very least it was good to have a break from them.

It goes much deeper than that, obviously. As integral as lunacy is to Apocalypse Hotel’s success, taking a foot of the gas was a good thing. It was in much need a sober and reflective episode, especially as we’re nearing the end of the series. I guess there’s a certain irony, then, in the events this week being the result of Ponko forcing Yachiyo to take a couple of days off. Obviously something like that doesn’t come naturally to a hotelier robot. But it also happens that Yachiyo has a park that needs replacing ( a memory card by the looks of it), so this gives her an excuse to do some shopping. And I’m not sure she would have made the time otherwise.

So Yachiyo dons some frumpy clothes and sets about trying to figure out how a sentient being spends downtime. She rents a room at the hotel, though basically just to inspect it illicitly. Down in the lobby an alien is asking Doorman about pets, to which he replies they’re allowed but must be tagged. My immediate thought here was an extraterrestrial was going to check in with a human as a pet, but things didn’t follow that course (it was still interesting to see the resolution of that thread). Eventually Yachiyo heads outside to, effectively, wander aimlessly – though she does keep her eyes open for a compatible part (including at the robot graveyard of retired staff).

The rest of the episode is largely dialogue-free, and it works very well for the most part. Yachiyo wanders the ruins of Tokyo – Ginza at first but then branching out. We’ve seen this sort of motif before of course, and with this sort of premise, but when it’s good it’s good. Apocalypse Hotel has occasionally recalled Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, and never more than here. If you’re going to riff on something, riff on the best. A cute robot wandering post-apocalyptic Japanese landscapes? Yes, Sir. There are hints of the dark final days of humanity here – and that Yachiyo is recalling them. But we’re never beaten over the head with them, which is how this sort of thing should be handled.

The purely atmospheric moments are excellent in their own right here, like Yachiyo praying at a shrine (leaving a massive offering of worthless money for no one), and the animals of the area gathering around the fire she builds. But there are a couple of key events. Yachiyo finally finds a usable part (after one from an electronics story turns out to be defective) along with a reminder of her own mortality. And she meets a strange horse, which leads her back to its herd and then takes a massive chomp on her head. This horse turns out to be a pegasus, and in fact the pet that the guest was asking about earlier.

In sum this was a lovely, somber reminiscence – and a marked improvement over the past several episodes. It’s always interesting to ponder how an original series might end, but that’s especially true with this one. Apocalypse Hotel could go in almost any direction – humans returning, Yachiyo’s clock finally winding down, the return of Harmageddon (which could go one of two ways). How it ends will tell us what message it was trying to send us – and given the stumbles of the past few eps, I think that’s an especially important question.